Working with Windows 7 Taskbar

At first glance, the Taskbar in Windows 7 does not look much different from earlier versions. The Start button remains on the far left and the clock continues ticking away on the right. However, first impressions can be misleading. The first clue that things have changed are those three icons next to the Start button. Respectively, they represent Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player. But Windows 7 has only just launched and none of these three applications are running, so what are they doing on the Taskbar?

With Windows 7, Microsoft has reinvented the Taskbar to act more like a ‘dock’, where programs can either come and go, or take up permanent mooring. As we will soon see, running applications will continue to appear here automatically, but any application can be ‘pinned’ to the Taskbar so it can be launched quickly. So how do you tell if a program is running or pinned? To find out, launch an application: click the Internet Explorer icon and the program will start. The application’s Taskbar icon now becomes a button to indicate that it is a running program. This pinning concept replaces the old Quick Launch toolbar, whereby an area of the Taskbar was reserved for icons of favourite applications.

In the Internet Explorer window just launched open a couple of websites, each in a different browser tab. Now hover the mouse pointer over the Internet Explorer icon in the Taskbar. Two preview windows should appear directly above, showing miniature renditions of the two websites open and displayed by the application. Move the mouse pointer over each preview and the main Internet Explorer window will change to match. Left-click to select the one you want.

Notice, too, that the button around Internet Explorer’s Taskbar icon changes to a ‘stack’ to indicate it is displaying multiple website pages. These effects work on all applications, incidentally. Also, the thumbnail preview windows are ‘live’, so they reflect precisely what the application window is displaying at any given moment. Here, for instance, we have opened three different copies of Wordpad, each with different content and different window sizes: the live previews make it easy to identify the relevant window. Clicking on the small red cross at the top-right of a preview window will close the associated application window.

Rearranging pinned Taskbar icons is easy. Left-click on an item and keep the mouse button held down while dragging it to a new position and release the mouse button to drop it in place. It’s also easy to pin a program to the Taskbar. Either drag and drop a program icon straight onto the Taskbar or right-click it and select Pin to Taskbar. You can remove a taskbar icon by right-clicking on it and choosing the ‘Unpin this program...’ option.

There are other subtle changes to the Taskbar. The Notification Area in particular has been simplified. In previous versions of Windows, this part of the Taskbar -­ next to the clock -­ could easily become overrun with application icons, all competing for the user’s attention. But in Windows 7 the user has fine control over which, if any, programs can make use of the Notification Area. Here, for instance, our test PC has only four icons in the Notification Area: one for keyboard options, one for the Action Center, and networking and volume notifications. Hover the mouse over an icon for more information, or click for related options.

If you click the small up-pointing arrow in the Notification Area a small window will pop up showing other icons that can be shown here but have been hidden by Windows. To change which are shown, click the Customize link.

This opens the Notification Area icons settings. Use this to set which programs can display their icons or alerts in the Notification Area. Here, for instance, we have removed the volume icon. If you prefer the free-for-all nature of the old Notification Area, click to place a tick in the ‘Always show all icons and notifications...’ checkbox.

A new addition to the Taskbar lurks on the furthest right edge: a small rectangle called the ‘Show desktop’ button, which has two functions. Hover the mouse pointer over it for half a second and it will invoke a Windows 7 feature called Aero Peek. This temporarily makes all application windows transparent so the contents of the Windows Desktop can be seen (handy for viewing Windows 7 Desktop gadgets, as in our screenshot). Alternatively, left-clicking it will minimise all windows and a second click will restore them.

Some aspects of the Taskbar have not changed. It can still be resized, for instance. To do this, right-click on any blank part, click to remove the tick from the Lock the Taskbar option and then left-click and drag the top edge of the Taskbar to make it larger or smaller. Similarly, right-click a blank area and select Properties to change other Taskbar settings such as whether it should be always visible, the size of icons and its screen position.